Only Human
By Betsey Nash, SPHR
Last issue I mentioned how my former Home Depot store manager defined my role: “Keep me out of jail.”
It’s really not a bad job description for a human resources manager, but it only tells part of the story. We keep our employers out of jail by enforcing the employment laws that regulate how employees are treated in the workplace. No mean feat in California, as we all know, but ensuring compliance isn’t all we do by a long shot.
I vaguely addressed the job’s dual foci — compliance and employee relations — when I responded to a letter from a reader asking if HR pros are required by law to look out for the employees?
I waxed philosophical, if not poetic, about the idyllic workplace where the manager values all of his employees and knows it is in the business’ best interest to support them in their jobs. The letter writer said that his HR manager seemed to always side with the boss, even when it was obviously unfair.
I could have been more clear in my response to the writer’s question. There is no law concerning HR’s job, but there are plenty of “best practices” regarding the enforcement of employment laws, training supervisors to not step on employee rights, and for auditing everything from payroll to termination, benefits and timecards, work status, legal notices and more, to be sure employees are being treated fairly.
I asked some of my colleagues how they defined their job and their responses captured the dual focus in the job:
“I help our organization and our employees work to their best potential, as well as keep our organization compliant with state and federal laws.”
“Just keeping up with the changes in California employment law is a full time job in and of itself; keeping our company in compliance and ahead of employee complaints and potential litigation takes full day time focus. Educate, educate, educate… communicate, communicate, communicate. Then there’s being the ‘keeper of the conscience’ for the company: What are we doing well? Where do we need to improve? How can we better support our workforce, and what can we do to make the tripod stay balanced (work, life, play)?”
“Sure, HR has to know its stuff, execute HR, align with the business, and assess its efforts. But all of that is only a starting point. If HR is to be truly effective, it must show a backbone, fortitude, a point of view, and most of all, courage. It can’t just blindly follow what the CEO or executive team asks it to do. It must stand up for what it believes in, confront difficult issues, and act as the conscience of the company.”
Compliance and conscience
So what is “fair?” According to Webster’s Dictionary, it’s “treating people in a way that does not favor some over others.” I say it isn’t “fairness” that matters, but “consistency.”
Do you deal with situations consistently? Do you have a procedure, make it known, and follow it?
Not every situation is the same, of course, but some things happen often enough that you can have an established procedure for dealing with it.
Like vacations for example. You have a rule that you need two weeks advance notice before someone can take a vacation day. Do you always follow it? Are there no exceptions? What makes an exception – the needs of the business or the pleading of the employee?
When you know the right answer to that, you’ll know what’s “fair.” Make sure your employees know your reasoning so that they realize it’s fair, too.
Betsey Nash, SPHR, has more than 20 years experience in the human resources business. She can be reached at: . Only Human is a regular feature of Tolosa Press.
